I’m just going to have to get better at describing scenery, otherwise how am I going to let you know how absolutely Psalm 23 this holidays is – the still waters and green pastures part, obviously, not the valley of the shadow of death part.
Today, the last Monday of my holidays, I met with a friend for coffee in the morning for a delightful catch up and reconnect. Then this afternoon I had to leave the house because the cleaner (whom I love almost as dearly as I love my family) was coming in to make my house beautiful again and I don’t like to get in her way.
I wanted to go and check out the Hairy Giraffe in Margate but as it turns out that cafe is closed on Mondays (boo) so I drove back along the highway to the Pancake Train. I didn’t feel like eating Pancakes so I ate a chicken pie and salad instead. You would be surprised (or maybe you wouldn’t – maybe you know me well enough) at how much I had to convince myself that it was ok not to eat pancakes if I didn’t want to. Who cares if it is called the Pancake Train. If it sells chicken pies and that’s what I want to eat, then that’s ok.
It must have been good food and good coffee because I managed to write another thousand words in my novel while I was sitting there. Then feeling both virtuous and replete I decided to drive back home the Tinderbox way. It’s just so gorgeous around there.
There were green pastures, for real, with cows and all. And still waters, well, waters with very small waves. I drove down the little road that runs alongside the vineyard down to the river and I parked beside the little playground on the pebble beach. I read the interesting information (Tinderbox is named after a french tinderbox that Mr Fergusson found on the beach there) and wandered along the shore until it looked like I would have to go rock-hopping to get any further. It wasn’t a long walk. It probably didn’t even count as a short walk. But it was a walk beside still waters.
I didn’t feel like getting back into my car yet so I wandered out onto the jetty and stared into the water. I saw a school of fish and then later a single fish swimming beneath my feet. It really didn’t feel like that long since I had done the same thing up at St Helens. But that was the last school holidays. We’ve had almost a full term since then. The thing is, to see fish from a jetty you need to be still. Just be still and wait. It’s a good thing to do to slow yourself down when you’re on holidays.
It’s amazing just how refreshing a little bit of nature is. Just how good it is for the soul to see the green of the grass, the blue of the sky, the olive gum trees, the bare branches of the vineyard in their neat rows, to hear the ripple of the water over the pebbles on the beach, to see the lorikeets fly past in front of the car and the flash of the robin’s red breast as he sits on the fencepost.
It’s been a gorgeous day. A restful and joyful day. A restoration of the soul.